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Last week, from Tuesday to Thursday, marine stakeholders of the Falkland Islands gathered for a workshop on Marine Spatial Planning (MSP). This workshop was part of the 2-year project funded by Darwin Pus, managed by SAERI. The aim of the project is to initiate the process of MSP for the Islands by preparing data, tools and analyses, and working towards a framework for MSP in the Falkland Islands. The results will inform the Falkland Islands Government and its stakeholders on how to implement MSP and make recommendations on priority zones for management. This workshop was the third and last workshop of the project that will end in July 2016. In December 2015, the MSP team submitted a paper to the Executive Council summarising the benefits that MSP could bring the islands. ExCo has agreed to the production of an MSP Plan, subject to a fine-scale framework. The workshop provided the platform for discussion to define this fine scale framework with local stakeholders and a couple of international experts. An MSP Plan is a strategic coordinated plan for regulating, managing and protecting the marine environment that addresses the multiple, cumulative and potentially conflicting uses of the sea, current and future, and aim to fulfill economic, ecological and social objectives.

Jude and Michael presenting the results of their breakout group.

Workshop participants included representatives from marine industries (fishing, oil, shipping), government departments (EPD, Minerals, Fisheries, Marine and Biosecurity officers), MLAs, Falklands Conservation, Royal Navy, Wildlife Conservation Society, and recreational activities (Yacht Club, diving), SAERI, as well as three international delegates from Scotland, the shetland Islands and Ascension Island.The workshop consisted of brief presentations to show all the maps produced depicting human activities at sea and areas used by wildlife, and of cultural values (check out the MSP webGIS to look at some of the maps), alternated with a series of sessions where participants worked on small exercises on MSP objectives and targets, shipping, conservation, Berkeley Sound management, interconnectivity between marine activities, people’s values and the environment, and MSP format, actors and roles. The participants provided great insights in the priority needs to ensure coordinated sustainable development of the islands’ maritime activities.

The HMS Clyde at sunrise in Port Stanley.

Commander Bill Dawson from the Royal Navy at MPA has been on the MSP project steering committee since its start and he had kindly offered to host one workshop day on board HMS Clyde to illustrate some maritime activities. The workshop participants therefore had the great opportunity to spend a whole day on board last Thursday, partly in the officers’ mess for work sessions and the rest of the time on the deck during a visit in Berkeley Sound where they witnessed ships bunkering in the same area as Sei whales foraging and vessel traffic. The crew were great hosts and made this day very useful and memorable for the workshop.

The workshop was a great success, with engaged and interested participants, and some great outcomes to help design what MSP should look like in the Falkland Islands. Some of the main outcomes in regard to MSP were a clear need for improve shipping management, of vessels visiting the islands but also in particular, transiting through the Falklands’ waters. Of particular importance was the area around the Jason Islands with a shipping route on the west of this archipelago. Identifying other areas vulnerable to shipping risks, as well as for human safety (eg. cruise ship traffic) was also found a priority. MSP was overall seen as a great tool to improve safety at sea and emergency responses, as well as coordinate management of maritime activities, now and for the future. Rachel Shucksmith from the Shetland Islands’ MSP team at the University of Highlands and Islands was an invited speaker at the workshop. She also gave a very informative and exciting public talk on the Tuesday evening, to a packed room, about the Shetlands and how they use MSP to ensure sustainable maritime development there. For more info on the Falklands’ MSP project, check out the MSP webpage.

Rachel Shucksmith from the University of Highlands and Islands giving a public presentation on the Shetland Islands’ marine life and local management in Stanley on 5 April.

Thanks to all the participants for their enthousiasm, and to Sammy for her brilliant logistic assistance and Emma for all the note-taking!

When the IMS-GIS data centre started its activities in October 2013, data collected by individuals or groups working in the South Atlantic UKOTs were rarely documented. Data management was a concept that was considered as necessary, but it was not realised or implemented. As a consequence, it was common to have duplicated data or to lose data because of lack of proper backup procedures. The main priority of the data centre was, therefore, to start documenting data using standard metadata. As such, having these standards ensures that the documentation could be transferable to other systems, organisations and individuals.

After 2 years of activity, the online metadata catalogue is populated with more than 630 records describing data from Ascension Island, Saint Helena and the Falkland Islands. The achievement was possible thanks to the work of the data managers on the three islands and all the stakeholders involved in the process.

One of the reasons for documenting data through the standard metadata form is so that data can be discovered in an easier and quicker way. It also ensures data longevity and increases awareness of the data that can bring opportunities for collaborative works.

Antoine Amphoux & Titouan Chapouly are two master students at the Swiss Federal Institute of technology of Lausanne. They discovered the data through the online metadata catalogue, approached the data managers of the islands, used the data request form to obtain the data and sent back their final result, which is their Master thesis. The document has the taste of victory for the data managers as is the tangible evidence that the effort, put into harvesting metadata and persuading people that metadata are essential part of the data, it is worth.

Antoine & Titouan were asked few questions after sending their thesis entitled “South Atlantic Islands. The resilience of isolated territories: toward an architecture of imported vernacular”.

Q: Why did you decide to embark a research project on the South Atlantic islands?

A: One of the starting points in our choice of this research topic lies in the observation of territories and human settlements on it. Indeed, societies have been created at an increasing pace, on wider and larger territories following an exponential and global culture development. By doing so, societies have created buildings, landscapes and machines that deny collective reality and natural conditions.

In opposition of this spread, Islands territories are enclosed geographical spaces where human expansion is very limited. And the particular case of the South Atlantic Ocean islands question this logic of goods, materials and culture model importation due to their radical remoteness. Thus, if we consider this increasing development as a vehicular culture, what becomes a more specific culture, a vernacular culture that emerges from a place?

Through these first observations, we decided to launch this project, first, curious about the strong persistence of the islander settlements, then strongly interested in very particular aesthetic expression of these cultures.

Q: What is in brief the research thesis about?

Regarding this description, the three islands seem for us the ideal locations to explore the resilience of isolated territories and its related dichotomy of vernacular logic versus colonial logic.

Indeed as a spatial aesthetic, vernacular and colonial are usually represented as opposite concepts. The first emerging from the specificity of a place, as paradigm of local cultures intimately linked to their territories. The latter tied to foreign cultures, as an invasive system, vehicular of a modern world.

The thesis accepts that both might merge to create synergies in order to answer challenges of our time. However, reality is quite different, the colonization brought globalization where any local culture tends to be standardized by the logic of mass production. However, because of remoteness and extreme conditions, we try to understand how the three islands developed through time different degrees of hybrid cultures linked to both vernacular and colonial architectures.

Q: How useful to your project was the South Atlantic metadata catalogue online?

The condition of remoteness of the three islands not only produces economical challenges, but also makes them, to a certain point, isolated from a global data network. We can find metadata on most of the territories on Earth, but the South Atlantic islands become quite challenging to study as soon as you try to grasp details, or specific entities in order to understand the geography.

The Metadata catalogue in parallel of multiple media, allowed us to fulfill our desire to look the territory and its complexity. Through this approach, geographical maps, raw data but also pictures comparisons and aesthetic references allowed us to have a better understanding of the islands.

Q: How easy was to obtain the data through the data request form?

A: Through our search, we easily found the access to the Metadata catalogue, and, in the same way, the data request was quick to find in the description of the website.

Q: Were the data managers helpful and did they reply to you promptly?

A: The exchanged mails were essential in our right use of the data. Actually, we already worked with metadata and .shp .xml files through previous work in university but it’s always difficult to choose precisely the data. Indeed, descriptions in the catalogue and advice from the three GIS managers were helpful in the use of the different formats.

We were also surprised to see the efficient communication and teamwork between the three GIS managers while asking different data files, and it sometimes allowed us to not duplicate the requests about the same files.

Q: Are you planning to visit the territories you studied during your Masters?

A:The difficulty to reach the places is an essential fact. However, after these series of observations and analysis, our desire to visit the three islands increases even more.The new airport in Saint Helena is indeed a factor that potentially allows us to reach both Ascension Island and Saint Helena Island, but Tristan da Cunha remains remote as the long journey by boat has just a few places opened to visitors.

Moreover, our particular interest and the work we produced about Tristan da Cunha make this island a place we would like to visit. The University’s schedule don’t give us time to plan a visit before this summer, but we still plan to do it after the academic year as a continuity of our study. We’re actually looking for any support from scientific, architectural or governmental institutions. Indeed, our wish would be to present the final architectural project to the administrator of Tristan da Cunha and also share our ideas with the islanders.

Q: Is there anything you want to suggest to improve the accessibility to data?

A:The centralization of the data would be a fundamental point to set up regarding the large catalogue of metadata available. Currently, the requests have to be done and sent to the owner and manager of the data, and potentially, it would allow a considerable gain of time to send to a main system, or a common request file.

Although data from the Falkland Islands were requested and obtained, unfortunately the thesis did not include them. Antoine & Titouan explained that the climate condition and the size of Falklands are too different to compare it with Saint-Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Also, the geopolitical issues of the Falklands deserve to be treated in one full study. Perhaps in the future there will be another opportunity, nevertheless the work by the two master students proved that metadata and the online catalogue are valuable and the online catalogue is working and data request system can be improved further. Overall, for everybody in the South Atlantic UKOTs this is a great achievement after 2 years of hard work.

New Island is one of the western islands of the Falkland Islands archipelago. Its western coastline is characterised by sheer cliffs (mainly sandstone) which are the nesting (breeding) ground of black-browed albatrosses, king cormorants and rockhopper penguins. The cliffs are a distinctive character of the island and the most scenic and spectacular landscape that people can enjoy along with several white sandy beaches scattered all over. A field research station built in the 1970s has been offering a great support to researchers coming to study what nature shows at its best in this place. The mix between the natural beauty, the self-contained and small environment, and the research facilities provided by New Island, made the location the perfect ground for attempting the first ground truthing of the Falkland Islands interpreted soil map.

The map (see May blog) is one of outcomes of the TEFRA (Terrestrial Ecosystems of the Falklands – a Climate Change Risk Assessment) project and it is a very valuable dataset considering that there are very few studies of the soils of the Falklands and the most prominent goes back to the 1970’s. The interpretation was by Rodney Burton, a soil specialist who has worked previously in the Falklands, on the basis of the superficial deposits described in the geological map drawn up by the British Geological Survey. In late May Rodney came to Stanley and delivered a two week soil course funded by the TEFRA project and the result was a familiarisation with the identification of types of soils and above all a new interest in an element of the landscape that generally is not eye-catching, except in eroded areas.

The ground truthing work ended in coring locations across 80% of the island (the southernmost area and Sabina point were not visited) resulting in a total of 160 cores and describing the soil characteristic of each core such as depth, colour, texture, stoniness, structure and mottling. Dutch and gouge augers were the tools used to extract the cores; the latter was preferred in the case of peat or very peaty soils (figures below). According to the landscape and the interpreted soil map, the cores were taken along transects perpendicular to slope and longitudinal to the valleys in order to have a good representation of changes in soil types if these occurred.

The data and description of the soils cored to different depth have been entered in a postgres database and mapped in QGIS. The last part of the work, currently in progress, is to match the soil descriptions with the soil type classification scheme adopted by the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). A simplified illustrated legend of soil types with related pictures was presented by Rodney in May and it will provide a valuable visual aid. WRB methodology for soil classification can be summarised in three steps: determining diagnostic horizons, properties and materials; allocating the soil to a Reference Soil Group; allocating principal and supplementary qualifiers. The principal qualifier are ranked from right to left in order of importance and differentiate the RSG according to the primary pedogenetic process (soil-forming factors or processes that most clearly condition the soil) that characterise soil features. The supplementary qualifiers, used in alphabetical order, are added in brackets. The two tables below offer example of a simplified guide to the WRB RGS and the classes of soils identified in the Falklands.

Scale is the factor to be taken into account after the soil identification at each sample point has been completed. In fact there is a discrepancy between the scale of the interpreted map, which is at 1:250,000, and the level of detail provided by the ground truthing, which is in the order of 300-500 metres (where the coring took place the samples were taken on average at 300-500 metres). A full report will be available in early 2016 and the hope is that the results can be useful to refine the interpreted map; the methodology could be applied to other small islands; conservationists can refer to the outcomes for planning habitat restoration projects and other researchers can be inspired to carry out further investigations. We would like to thank the New Island Conservation Trust to give us the opportunity to carry out the field works and to offer the Field station facilities as base camp. Thank you to the wardens of New Island for their kindness and hospitality.

The recipe for wildlife magic is simple: bring in together hundreds of thousands of flying seabirds, boil together with some sea lions, penguins and giant tussac and there you have it: Kidney menu! This is the summary of my recent visit to Kidney Island for some seabird work. A SAERI team has spent three nights working on Kidney Island, a small nature reserve island covered in tussac at the mouth of Berkeley Sound, home to a large (> 50,000 breeding pairs) colony of sooty shearwaters.

Tussac on Kidney Island in the area used by shearwaters.

The aim of the trip was to recover geolocator tags (small light-based tracking tags) that had been deployed on sooty shearwaters in 2012 and 2014 by an overseas researcher. SAERI is facilitating the recovery. The team comprised of team leader Nathan McNally (SAERI senior field technician), two wonderful volunteers Amanda Kuepfer (FIG Fisheries seabird observer) and Brendon Lee (FIG Fisheries scientist), and me (Amélie Augé). The data from geolocator tags give information on large-scale movements of animals. Dr April Hedd (Memorial University) and her team have already revealed the incredible migration that the Kidney’s shearwaters undertake each year between the Falkland Islands where they breed and the North Atlantic Ocean where they feed in open-waters off Newfoundland.

Shearwaters flying over Kidney Island at dusk before landing.

The work can appear slightly dire: all-nighters out in the cold Falkland summers (as I am writing it is snowing…). However, as soon as the sun disappears behind the horizon, the sky darkens, not because of the fading light though, but because of the number of shearwaters returning! They fly over the island for some time. Then they land (or more like crash-fall!) in the tussac, and it does not stop for 3 hours. We keep busy checking the ‘sock nets’ that we placed earlier on burrows where tags were deployed on birds and looking at the legs of every bird we come across in case we can spot a tag. During a small down time between midnight and 2 am, things are a little quieter with birds in their burrows and a few sleeping on the ground. Then the shearwaters start talking-chatting-calling again, loud and louder, from every burrow then from the ground where pairs or groups socialise. They seem to come out at once and the ground is covered with them, looking seemingly like a shearwater soup we have to walk through. Another opportunity to find more tags and the ‘sock nets’ have now been pulled out so that we can catch any birds coming out of the nest. Then by 3 am, it’s take-off time just as the sky lightens. The take-off patches are busy with a constant stream of birds. By 4.30 am, they are all gone and on their way to go feed at sea for a few days.

Burrows are most often too deep to reach by hand so ‘sock’ nets are used to catch birds entering (when the ‘sock’ is pulled inside the burrow. left picture) or leaving the burrow (when the net is pulled out). The net is unpinned and the bird is easily caught (middle). Right: Amanda holding a bird caught in the net before the geolocator tag was removed from its leg.

Over the night, some brave other seabirds enter the shearwater soup. The white-chinned petrels (the giants in a world of shearwaters) breed in the same area. The cute tiny grey-backed storm petrels also breed in the tussac above the shearwater burrows. While the white-chinned petrels seemed to work on the same timing as the shearwaters, the storm petrels arrived at the quietest moment of the night after midnight, likely to avoid the madness of the shearwater landing or taking off time! All in all, time flies over night with all the wildlife (because I have not even mentioned the sea lions, the Magellanic penguins and other animals that can be encountered in the tussac too!) and with sleepy eyes, it is time… for breakfast with a couple of hot drinks, and then the tent for a good day sleep!

This amazing taste of wildlife flavour gave the Kidney menu and its shearwater soup a great star! I am back in the office now, working on Marine Spatial Planning for the Falkland Islands. Data such as those gained from the tags recovered from the shearwaters provide great information to understand the use of the marine environment by seabirds and how we can ensure that maritime activities do not affect these remarkable animals.

In a recent blog, it was revealed that the Falkland Islands, although remote, actually receive a considerable amount of marine traffic. More than a thousand different vessels (tankers, cargo ships, supply vessels, fishing boats, cruise liners, yachts etc) entered the Falklands Conservation zones from May 2014 to May2015.

Biosecurity is a set of precautions to reduce the risk of introducing or spreading invasive non-native species (NNS), and other harmful organisms such as diseases, in the wild. Biosecurity is a hot topic in the Falkland Islands because the characteristic of being remote does not exclude the risk of invasion from NNS that in such isolated islands and pristine environment can be very detrimental to the local habitats and their unique native species.

The Falkland Islands can be reached either by plane or boat. It means that in terms of biosecurity, introduction and spreading of invasive NNS can occur via both. The maps below show the connections from the rest of the world to the Falklands by air and by sea. It is evident that biosecurity control on ships is more crucial considering the annual number and the various locations from which the boats depart before reaching the Falklands, compared to the more regular and limited air connection.

One of the main biosecurity risks associated with boats is biofouling which is the colonisation, and the transport on the submerged surfaces of the boats, of unwanted organisms such as bacteria, barnacles and algae. These organisms travel on the ship hull and can be released and introduced in a new area where, as NNS, they may become invasive and damage the native marine environment or its resources. Ship biofouling is therefore a marine biosecurity risk that needs to be managed. Site monitoring in areas known to be at risk can also help detecting invasive NNS and remove or eradicate them before they spread.

It is therefore important for the Falkland Islands to identify the most susceptible areas of introduction of NNS. In the context of Marine Spatial Planning, GIS were used as analytical and mapping tool to provide useful information for biosecurity policies. Mapping areas at risk of invasive NNS from biofouling was a collaborative work between the GIS specialist (Dr iLaria Marengo) and the Marine Spatial Planning project leader (Dr Amélie Augé) at SAERI.

The shipping data were split by vessel category and were classified into groups with a high risk of introduction (from overseas) of NNS such as cargo ships, tankers, cruise ships and pleasure boats, or with a high risk of diffusion (within the islands) of NNS such as cruise ships, harbour, military and internal ferry. The risk of introduction and diffusion generated by each vessel category was scored according to the likeliness of biofouling, and the frequency of activities.

QGIS was used to conduct all the analyses and mapping. A Kernel density analysis was performed for each vessel category to map the density of boats for 5km cells within the territorial sea (12nm from shore) all around the islands. Density was multiplied by the number of different vessels occurring in the same area because variety, along with the quantity, of boats will have an impact in terms of risk of introduction of NNS. The resulting values were then multiplied by the risk scores. Finally, the maps for each vessel category were added to each other to create the final map of risk of introduction and diffusion of NNS in the Falkland Islands.

In parallel, a second GIS analysis was run to map areas with environmental features that would be sensitive to invasive NNS. The locations of breeding colonies of albatrosses, penguins, and pinnipeds were taken into account along with the distributions of kelp beds, Important Plant Areas, RAMSAR sites and tussac islands. The sensitivity of each environmental feature was mapped by creating buffers (ranging from 500m to 3 km) from the centre of the colonies or from the centre of the area. The areas of the buffers were attributed a value of 1, which corresponded to a high sensitivity score, so all the environmental variables were equally assessed as high in terms of sensitivity. The maps were added together to produce the overall environmental sensitivity map with values from 0 (low) to 1 (high).

The conclusive part of the GIS analyses was to highlight which environmentally sensitivite areas are most at risk to be affected by introduction of NNS due to biofouling. The resulting maps show that the area with the highest risk of introduction of NNS is Port Williams/Stanley Harbour. This did not come as a surprise because the Shallow Marine Survey Group has already detected some invasive NNS there. The areas of high risk of diffusions are the main touristic islands since they are well known sites of seabird and marine mammal colonies. Mare harbour stood out as a likely area at risk too.

The overall conclusion of this GIS analysis is that there are significant risks of introduction and diffusion of NNS, which may damage the pristine environment of the Falkland Islands. Some sites were highlighted as most at risk of direct introduction and should be surveyed, while biosecurity measures should be taken. Other sites at risk were identified from the diffusion process all around the islands. The results are preliminary and should be taken as initial findings. They are however already good indicators of where the biosecurity officer could target efforts, and provide good information for marine spatial planning. The analysis could be refined with more data and by taking into consideration other ways of introductions of NNS such as ballast water. More in-depth analyses of potential impacts of some NNS on inshore marine species should also be explored in the future.

Around 90% of trade worldwide is carried by ships across the oceans. Shipping is a crucial part of the economy of the modern world we live in. The Falklands are no exception and most goods are transported by ships. So you know that there are ships visiting the Islands to deliver food, materials, petrol, kero, tourists etc and to export Falklands’ products to the world. But, with the remoteness of the Islands, shipping traffic passing by should be minimal, right? Obviously it is not the English Channel here! Yet, with an estimated 50,000 large ships going around the globe at any given time (with this number increasing at great rates), what do we know about what’s going on around the Falklands, if ships pass by, how many, what kind and where?

The oil product tanker JASON (105 m in length) in Port Williams.

Shipping data are of upmost importance for Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) because ship traffic is a major source of safety risks from collision or grounding and also of environmental risks (oil spills). In the previous Penguin News, the MSP team introduced what MSP is and the type of information we are collecting to provide scientific tools and advice to manage the marine environment in the long-term. Surprisingly, prior to the start of the MSP project, there was no long term recording of data on shipping activities. Sure has been running a system to monitor shipping traffic since 2013, but solely to display real-time ship locations online for ship-spotters; the data were deleted. This system is called AIS (or Automated Identification System). Ships are equipped with it and transmit information via radio signals picked up by land stations. Sure has 3 such stations across the Falklands. The information given includes the ship identity, the time and its GPS location. Working with Mark Street at Sure, the data has now been extracted and saved at SAERI every 3 months. The MSP project now has one year of hourly shipping locations to analyse. And what a mine of information that is!

Ship locations are used to map their paths across Falklands’ waters. Over 1,100 different ships and boats entered these waters and a significant shipping route west of the Islands was uncovered. Most ships were on route to somewhere else and included oil tankers, container ships, bulk carriers, reefers and cruise ships, but no wine tankers (such a thing does exist!) to the despair of some SAERI colleagues. The largest ship that travelled through the Falklands’ waters in the last year was the crude oil tanker APOLYTARES, 335m long (more than 3 times the length of a rugby field), that passed 50km east off Beauchêne Island; another of similar size passed within 30km of the Jason Islands. In total, 75 different oil tankers were recorded but only 4 actually delivered to the Falklands or refuelled the Falklands’ fishing boats.

Paths of oil tankers

On the left are all paths of oil tankers that were recorded in Falklands’ waters (area bordered in yellow) between May 2014 and May 2015. The paths around Stanley, Berkeley Sound and in the North are tankers for local delivery and re-fuelling of fishing boats at sea, and supplying the oil rig that was then north of East Falkland.

Over that year, 220 different cargo ships, including reefers working with the fishing boats at sea, were also recorded. The largest cargo ships that travelled were bulk carriers of 300m in length and travelled as close as 10km from the Jason Islands and 8km from Beauchêne. The SCOUT, a 93m cargo ship that delivers goods to the Islands from South America was recorded several times, travelling within 2km of the Jason Islands. Boats also regularly sail within 1 to 2 km from Volunteer Point.

Paths of cargo ships

On the left, paths of all cargo ships that were recorded in Falklands’ waters (area bordered in yellow) between 2014 and May 2015. These include reefers but not the oil rig supply boats or the Concordia Bay (local delivery ship).

The shipping data and analyses now provide some scientific tools to identify areas of potential need for monitoring or management. The area of the Jason Islands is particularly sensitive because there is a significant amount of traffic in the western shipping route. Ships may take short cuts through or close to the islands. Further analyses will be conducted and these shipping data can be combined with data on other activities or areas of value to provide FIG with an overview of potential issues, and help make strategic, informed decisions owing that activities will increase in the marine environment in the future. This is the type of benefits Marine Spatial Planning can provide.

For more information, questions or interest in being involved in MSP in the Falkland Islands, Dr Augé can be contacted at SAERI by phone 27374 or email AAuge@env.institute.ac.fk.

Written by Dr Amélie Augé, spatial ecologist at SAERI, leading researcher and manager of the 2-year Darwin Plus-funded project ‘Marine Spatial Planning for the Falkland Islands’. This article was published in the Penguin News on 30 October 2015, ending an MSP series of 4 articles.

This article was written by Veronica Frans, research assistant at SAERI, as part of the Darwin Plus-funded project ‘Marine Spatial Planning for the Falkland Islands’. The FIG Environmental Planning Department financially supports this whale study via their Environmental Studies Budget. This article was published in the Penguin News on 23 October 2015 as part of an MSP series of 4 articles.

When’s the last time you’ve seen a whale? Have they always been around, or did they suddenly just reappear? The story behind the whales in the Falklands is currently incomplete. Commercial whaling activities in the early 1900s had nearly decimated whales throughout the world, including here. Annual captures of as many as 463 whales at New Island Station were recorded then. These were solely of the large baleen whales – mainly sei and fin whales. Since then, according to anecdotes heard while talking with people, in particular with FIGAS pilots, these whales may well have been doing a comeback to the beautiful Falklands’ shores, and in great numbers. So could there be a success story here, of a possible recovering whale population?

Typical sightings of baleen whales (two blows of humpback whales)

Whether it’s being noticed or not, something is happening with the baleen whales here in the Falklands. The problem is, no one has actually studied them until now! It means that we have very little data to determine what is happening. They’re here now, but the questions are: are they returning? Are their numbers increasing? Is there a seasonal pattern for their presence? Are there hotspots where they can be found? All these questions need answers. If the whale population is increasing, they may interact with ships and potentially collide with them. This is a serious issue faced in other countries with high whale density. Therefore, understanding the pattern of recovery of the whales in the Falklands and mapping their current distribution is needed for the Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) project. This project was described in the last couple of Penguin News and aims to provide scientific tools to FIG to co-ordinately manage the marine environment. In order to identify areas of potential risks and plan for the future, we need to identify areas used by whales, and whether their numbers are increasing.

But do we really have no data to answer these questions? Well, although there aren’t much actual data that exist, you (yes, you!), may be able to help fill in the data gap. This is called citizen science where scientists recognise that local inhabitants, as a group, have a huge amount of knowledge about the environment in which they live – especially historical knowledge. This can be harvested to fill in gaps for scientific studies. As part of the MSP project, a study currently underway addresses these questions on whales and is using this concept of citizen science to accomplish it. Information is being gathered by interviewing people, and the goal is to determine where and when they could and can be found, in the past and now. MSP is addressing the gaps in knowledge that exist, and it is hoped that maps can be produced to inform FIG for management, and also the tourism industry for development purposes.

Building a map of whale sightings with Ben Berntsen at Elephant Beach Farm.

Getting historical information on whales therefore largely depends on eyewitness accounts. In September, I went on fieldtrips to camp (on the East and West Falklands and some of the outer islands), visiting people and interviewing them. I asked for their first-hand knowledge on whales, having them indicate on a map when and where they have seen whales over their lifetime. Whether someone can provide one sighting or 30, or whether they know which species they saw or not, any input is helpful to the study because it is working to build strength in numbers. Preliminary results from 38 interviews thus far indicate that whales have been seen as early as November and as late as August in more recent years. The majority of sightings have been in January and February, according to 68% and 87% of these interviewees. Some of the earliest whale sightings were in the 1940s and 50s, but only 8% of interviewees have attested to those years. The majority of people have first seen whales in the 1990s and 2000s, and are still seeing them up until now.

Map illustrating a sample of the data from 3 people interviewed on whale sightings from the 1990s until now (2015).

More information is needed to obtain robust results, which will happen through more interviews, analyses of data recorded from FIGAS pilots, Falklands Conservation and other sources, and looking into commercial whaling archives. In terms of interviews, I will continue to contact people over the next few weeks. As a newcomer to the Islands, the study has given me the privilege to see many amazing places and meet so many welcoming and friendly people. I would like to thank those who have already participated in this study and also welcomed me into their homes. If you have any questions, my email is VFrans@env.institute.ac.fk. For more information on the overall MSP project, you can check SAERI’s website.

Remote sensing is the fascinating science that studies and exploits the way the light coming from the sun (or from another source, e.g. radar) is first absorbed and then reflected back to the atmosphere by the objects on the Earth’s surface. Contrary to GIS, whose basic concepts are relatively simple and more “user friendly”, remote sensing is a sort of “niche” discipline because it involves more physics and maths, and requires skills in image interpretation. Nevertheless, remote sensing, coupled with GIS, is a powerful tool for understanding the spatial and temporal changes of the environment and deriving useful information to support environmental policies, decisions on management planning and strategies.

From the 5th to the 13th of November, the Ascension Island Government Conservation Centre (AIG CC) hosted a training course in remote sensing as part of the capacity building supported by the Darwin Initiative project entitled “Mapping Ascension Island’s Terrestrial Ecosystem”. The course was run by Dr Johanna Breyer, who works at Environment Systems in Aberystwyth, and has been contracted to support AIG CC in the delivery of the Darwin Initiative project. Environment Systems is a well-established consultancy company with years of experience in the field of remote sensing and GIS analyses. Johanna’s main task is the processing and interpretation of the high resolution World View 2 image (2 metre resolution) by applying a rule-based object analysis called image segmentation.

Data managers from the Falkland Islands and Saint Helena governments were invited to attend the course with the intention of becoming “intelligent consumers and users” of remote sensing tools. The aim of the course was to better understand the concepts behind remote sensing and apply them specifically to habitat classification. Central part of the course was to learn how the remote sensing analyst operates when carrying out the image segmentation and how the field surveyors proceed in determining and validating the classes of habitats on the ground and with the help of statistics. Time was spent in the office and on field trips to various locations in Ascension, with a very interesting off road traverse of Green Mountain from east to west.

False colour image of Ascension (IR, red, green) to highlight the vegetated (red) and not vegetated (greyish) land. Clouds are visible in white.

Spectral signature plot of water, bareground and vegetation. According to the signature the remote sensing analytical tools are able to identify and distinguish the objects on the surface.

There were many lessons learned from the hard job that Sam and Phil did in terms of habitat classification, for instance using systematic approach in deciding the sampling points and in assessing the habitat (use a standard density scale, consider the height of the species, carry out the assessment according to three altitude zones, etc). Similarly, Johanna provided the necessary basis to become aware of what a remote sensing analyst needs in order to set the rules for the image segmentation and extract the objects that will match the habitat classes. Interpreting a satellite image means being able to read and understand the spectral signatures that describe how the light is absorbed and reflected by the objects. In addition, ancillary information can help in identifying the objects, along with the knowledge of the local ecologist. At the end is a matter of aligning what a remote sensing analyst can extract from the satellite image and what the ecologist can see and map from the ground.

Field works on a lava flow which hosts the sooty terns

The spread of the invasive Mexican thorn bush on the slope of the Devil’s Riding School

Although the rule-based image segmentation is carried out using commercial software, QGIS, the open source software being used across the South Atlantic overseas territories, provides a series on interesting plugins, such as Semi Automatic Classification and Orfeo tool box, which can be used as starting tools for unsupervised/supervised classifications and for practising what was learnt at the course. Furthermore, free Landsat images offer the opportunity to perform spatial/temporal analyses in QGIS and detect land cover changes which affect the territories.

An important outcome of the course was talking and drafting best and standard practice for habitat classification with the use of remote sensing and ecological knowledge that can be applied across the South Atlantic UKOTs. In fact, the goal is to transfer what has been achieved in Ascension to projects that will be run in Saint Helena and the Falklands in the future.

This is an article that was published in the Penguin News (on 16/10/15) as part of a series of 4 articles on Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and was written by Denise Herrera, research assistant at SAERI, leading the study on ‘Mapping Cultural Coastal Values’ as part of the Darwin Plus-funded project ‘MSP for the Falkland Islands’ and supervised by Dr. Amélie Augé (SAERI) and Dr. Kate Sherren (Dalhousie University, Canada).

The view into Hill Cove and Saunders – a value of natural beauty.

You might know this already, but the coastline is probably important to you. Or so an ongoing study part of SAERI’s Marine Spatial Planning project is trying to find out.

There are many reasons why a place might be important to you; you have memories there, there are important historical artifacts such as a shipwreck, close to your heart, or it could simply be the place where you like taking your dog for a walk or enjoying the sunset over the sea. These intangible “values” are what we call cultural values. They are what shape the community and give it an identity. What would the Falklands be without the hoards of people who, each mid-winter, take to Surf Bay for what can only be identified as an act of madness?

The study is focused on the coasts and is part of the Marine Spatial Planning project, developing management tools for the sea, introduced in last week’s edition. This study is not only important to fill a gap in knowledge but also to ensure your personal values are included alongside economic and environmental values. Cultural values are often overlooked by decision makers, but should be equal to other values when making any decision: would you want a waste storage facility next to your favourite beach?

The Falklands have not only got a unique seascape and coastline, but also have a unique community – YOU! We can easily map fishing activities or the location of a penguin colony, but mapping cultural values is more challenging. This is where we need the input from the community. With members of the community pointing out their favourite areas and explaining why these areas matter to them, we can create a series of maps highlighting the areas that contain key cultural values, to be incorporated in Marine Spatial Planning.

Cultural Values are found all around the Falkland Islands.

The study is now underway; many people living in camp have already been able to participate during fieldtrips, but we are now looking for participants from Stanley (or more people from camp who happen to be in Stanley in the next few weeks). You will simply be asked to highlight your top 15 favourite places along the coast on a map and say why they are important to you; participation is anonymous and voluntary. Surveys are done in person and take about 30 minutes. If you are over 18, have lived here for more than 5 years and would like to take part please contact Denise on 61090 or e-mail dherrera@fisheries.gov.fk to arrange a time. For more information about this study or the Marine Spatial Planning project, please visit the SAERI website.

We see maps every day, we use them when we travel and we refer to them to look for places and locations, but have you ever thought what makes a map? Basically, a map is a symbolic representation of a space. All objects within that space have a location and can therefore be mapped.. These objects, once associated with their geographic reference (location) are called spatial data. For example, a map displays boundaries, addresses, roads, buildings, wrecks and it is possible to attribute different colours or symbols according to what the objects represent. Think of the town plan for instance and its divisions into zones: residential, industrial, ports and marinas etc.

In the past, maps were made by hand, but this is no longer the case. Instead, there are computer programs called Geographic Information Systems (GIS) that allow drawing or importing data and create digital maps. GIS are very flexible and user-friendly tools as they facilitate the visualisation and analysis of spatial data. The great and unique property of GIS is not only to make pretty maps, but also to relate spatial objects (draw on maps as points, lines or areas) and overlap these data to derive information and provide it to the decision makers and the general public.

But what makes a map a good map, or the information useful? It would not be so good if you were to follow a map for kilometres and figure that the building you were looking for was actually on the other side of town! Because the map reflects the data that it displays, it is obvious that the quality of a map depends on the quality of the data. The way of saying “garbage in, garbage out” is applicable to GIS. Hence, it is important to have good data, to trust the data providers, and eventually to store the data in a central repository.

In order to spread the use of GIS and initiate spatial data management in the Falklands, a project called “Information Management System and GIS Data Centre” started two years ago, funded by the Foreign Commonwealth Office. This project included several free training courses. The last course was held on the 22nd and 23rd October at FIDF and was tailored to the FIG’s policy, planning and public work departments. After the course a trainee commented “Highways operate an asset management plan that is best managed and presented in geographical form. Undertaking the training in GIS has given me the tools to help improve the capture and presentation of information which should provide an easier approach, in the long term, to asset management”. Another trainee said “Using GIS will enable us to graphically represent statistics and information for the Islands in a comprehensive way. It will be particularly useful in visualising data for large-scale projects such as the upcoming Census, and in communicating those results to decision-makers and the public.”

Figure 2: Map of part of the Stanley plan (2015) made with GIS.

Establishing a long term plan for developing GIS and data management within the government has multiple advantages. In fact, it means the introduction of rules and concepts such as data standards, data sharing, data access and metadata (which is information about data) recording. Thanks to a collaborative work and joined effort (FIG, SAERI, and FC) everybody can now search for information on data collected in the Falklands through the IMS-GIS Centre and its metadata catalogue online on the SAERI webpage.

In the future, public data will be accessed through the internet using a webGIS service to show and communicate information derived from mapping and analysing spatial data. Falkland Islanders will access the service without using their megabytes. So next time you look at a map, think that behind that pretty picture, there is a long process of data management and that GIS are likely to have played a role.